I keep on receiving suggestions like "Please disable MVP Cards, balance pls!" with their lame reason "Because not everyone can camp boss monsters, RO players are already old and needs to work too"

In my opinion, MVP cards should be enabled because it serves as the reward for players who've been religiously killing boss monsters. And the people who are whining about MVP cards being enabled are crabs (crab mentality). "if I can't have it, neither can you."

Most people are too scared of them. Many of them don't disturb the balance and those that do are usually nerfed/balanced in the good servers. In fact, it would be nice if they dropped at a higher drop rate than 0.01% that I always see in every low rate (and sometimes mid rate) server these days. I agree that the cards can serve as a reward and gives something else to do in the game.

Usually what I like about RO is that all the items are fairly balanced. Every item seems to have a use for at least one situation. You might get a 4s weak weapon but put damage card into it and it will do more damage against certain races and elements that a strong unslotted weapon. But the strong unslotted weapon works well for all races so you don't need to switch. Or it has a special property that is of advantage in other situations like when tanking or doing crowd control.

MVP cards and god items are the two things that just outright seem to be clearly better than anything else. It really ruins the otherwise well done balance of RO. Especially for MVP cards it depends too much on luck rather than on effort to get them.

I don't really think the whole "harder challenge = better reward" should apply to RO. I mean in other MMORPGs it's like that. The every 5 levels there are new equipment sets that are superior to the previous ones. And the rare ones are better than the common ones. And you get the rare ones only from harder challenges. But for me that system is boring and I really like that RO went another way of making equips equally as good (at least until episode 10) thanks to the well done card system. So suddenly overwriting that balance with "OP" items seems rather counter-productive in that environment.

The bigger issue comes with PVP here, though. Let's say on your server there are two big guilds that fight each other every WoE. They are equally as good and someone guild A gets the castle and sometimes guild B. Now suddenly guild A gets a good MVP card. This can actually make guild A win WoE almost every time. As they get the castle more often they get more rewards and get more and more ahead of guild B. Eventually guild B doesn't see a chance to win anymore and leaves for another server. Then guild A quits because it gets bored as there's no challenger anymore.

In other words, in PVP you have high interest to keep the balance and give everybody the same chances no matter if they fought tons of MVPs already or not.

Usually I'd say you don't need to remove MVP cards, you could just nerf them so they aren't better than any common card. But here it's a popularity choice. "MVP cards removed" is easy for every player to understand, it can be listed in the feature list and everyone joining knows what to expect.If you instead changed all MVP cards to be perfectly balanced, you will have people going in with expectations of getting them and then being disappointed because GTB card only gives 10 MDEF instead of making you magic immune and get angry and complain about it on forums.

Usually I'd say you don't need to remove MVP cards, you could just nerf them so they aren't better than any common card. But here it's a popularity choice. "MVP cards removed" is easy for every player to understand, it can be listed in the feature list and everyone joining knows what to expect.If you instead changed all MVP cards to be perfectly balanced, you will have people going in with expectations of getting them and then being disappointed because GTB card only gives 10 MDEF instead of making you magic immune and get angry and complain about it on forums.

Actually, GTB is the most feared card and probably the reason why they hate MVP cards.

well as others have pointed out: Quite a few MvP cards are unrivaled in power. Some even are powerfull enough to affect an entire WoE singlehandedly.

And make no mistake - that will cause imbalance!

the further apart your player base growth in power the less balance there is - obviously. But now comes the voodo magic:

that the level of overall pvp satisfaction is directly linked to that level of pvp balance?There are a few general types of players regarding pvp:

- the ones who enjoy stomping others. And will always try to maintain their power. Usually a vivid farmer at first trying to get the most OP s*** investing a lot of time hogging a certain mvp etc. once he's got his stuff he will stagnate though. He does not adjust well to change and is likely to quit if you take away too much of his power. Trust me on this one - these guys are very toxic and will ruin your community. A good example are players who insist that thanatos card is balanced on a highrate server with max stats 300+ for as long as they are the only ones who possess one.

- the ones who enjoy a challenge and don't mind losing if the fight was perceived as fair. The most loyal group a rare breed and something you really want to keep. They don't just make sane requests they will also establish very healthy gameplay and a strong community. To get those players you will have to provide a balanced server though.

- bad losers. They will ask you for ridiciulous changes cause X is OP and they said so without giving valid reason. They are hard to distinguish. Every complaint should be taken seriously in general. But you will notice that they don't tend to listen to reason. Granting them inside on valid approaches to solve their problem will usually result in a s*** as thanks. Obviously they can be categorized as toxic

- the I just want to pvp D: why do I have to farm for 10 million years? They will complain about having to spend hours of farming mvps just to be able to compete. While they are lazy they can still be loyal. Lazy people only leave if they have to work too hard for their own enjoyment. The thing is: because they are lazy they will also be hesitant to start over on a new server. So if you provide a balanced pvp that doesn't require months of investment in order to become a competitive member of the community they are real keepers and form a healthy competitive pvp scene.

The "hard work = high reward" mentality should not apply to pvp. PVP players need to be on equal footing and terms to enjoy their time on both ends - the winning and losing. Your population will fluctuate a lot if you don't care for this aspect. You will either end up with empty pvp rooms or more and more toxic players will accumulate onto your server and eventually there will be a breakdown. a large group of frustrated players leaves, others follow and suddenly everyone is bored and the rest of the population will declare the server as dead.

well as others have pointed out: Quite a few MvP cards are unrivaled in power. Some even are powerfull enough to affect an entire WoE singlehandedly.

And make no mistake - that will cause imbalance!

the further apart your player base growth in power the less balance there is - obviously. But now comes the voodo magic:

that the level of overall pvp satisfaction is directly linked to that level of pvp balance?There are a few general types of players regarding pvp:

- the ones who enjoy stomping others. And will always try to maintain their power. Usually a vivid farmer at first trying to get the most OP s*** investing a lot of time hogging a certain mvp etc. once he's got his stuff he will stagnate though. He does not adjust well to change and is likely to quit if you take away too much of his power. Trust me on this one - these guys are very toxic and will ruin your community. A good example are players who insist that thanatos card is balanced on a highrate server with max stats 300+ for as long as they are the only ones who possess one.

- the ones who enjoy a challenge and don't mind losing if the fight was perceived as fair. The most loyal group a rare breed and something you really want to keep. They don't just make sane requests they will also establish very healthy gameplay and a strong community. To get those players you will have to provide a balanced server though.

- bad losers. They will ask you for ridiciulous changes cause X is OP and they said so without giving valid reason. They are hard to distinguish. Every complaint should be taken seriously in general. But you will notice that they don't tend to listen to reason. Granting them inside on valid approaches to solve their problem will usually result in a s*** as thanks. Obviously they can be categorized as toxic

- the I just want to pvp D: why do I have to farm for 10 million years? They will complain about having to spend hours of farming mvps just to be able to compete. While they are lazy they can still be loyal. Lazy people only leave if they have to work too hard for their own enjoyment. The thing is: because they are lazy they will also be hesitant to start over on a new server. So if you provide a balanced pvp that doesn't require months of investment in order to become a competitive member of the community they are real keepers and form a healthy competitive pvp scene.

The "hard work = high reward" mentality should not apply to pvp. PVP players need to be on equal footing and terms to enjoy their time on both ends - the winning and losing. Your population will fluctuate a lot if you don't care for this aspect. You will either end up with empty pvp rooms or more and more toxic players will accumulate onto your server and eventually there will be a breakdown. a large group of frustrated players leaves, others follow and suddenly everyone is bored and the rest of the population will declare the server as dead.

My response is related to Mid Rates since that's what I play 90% of the time

The only 2 game breaking cards that heavily impact the dynamics of WoE are GTB and FBH. They should be completely banned in woe castles. Every other MVP/Mini-Boss card has a counter and it's simple to single out people with VoIP. The people who have farmed fbh/gtb for months or invested a lot of money in obtaining them should have the luxury to use it in other aspects of the game like PVP & PVM. A lot of mvp cards are sheer useless and give you more of a disadvantage than an advantage during GvG.

That's why ppl camp GTB and FBH, not other useless MvP cards (like Tanee, Tao, Orc Hero, etc). GTB isn't that op, prevents all magic (which includes friendly skills, so no buffs of any kind) from affecting the user but that's it, it even uses a shield slot so it's an extra 30% dmg in PvP.

But... if you are to improve any of the classic mvp cards, which card(s) and what would be the changes you'd like to apply?

Only 'classic' mvp cards that's game-breaking is GTB. It makes magic classes completely useless. One change that could work is altering the chances from 100% negating magic to a 50% chance (which is still op but should be tolerable).

Perhaps you can keep MVP cards but ban them from WOE and PVP or atleast make a Vanilla version of PVP and WoE but also provide No Limitation room of WoE and PvP on your server, so people will have Vanilla PvP and WoE where they cannot use MVP cards but also PvP and WoE without limitation to use them. In my server MvP card is like collectibles, you dont put it in equipment but just to show them as your pride and your hardwork people will show them in their merchant with 2billion zeny as a price , it even can be a mascot card for your hardworking hunting Guild